The Savoury: Grilled Pumpkin Salad
This grilled pumpkin salad incorporates fresh goat’s curd, toasted pumpkin seeds, wild watercress, Pink Lady apples and Pecorino Sardo cheese. It is a blend of tart and salty, sweet and charred. Sauterelle head chef Robin Gill also sometimes adds cobnuts for crunch. This pumpkin recipe is an example of how at Sauterelle he tries not to match too many competing ingredients, instead extracting as much flavour as possible from them. Here you have pumpkin purée, chargrilled pumpkin strips and sautéed pumpkin.
Ingredients: (serves 4-6)
- 1kg pumpkin (Robin uses the Iron Bark variety)
- 50g extra-virgin olive oil
- 50ml walnut oil
- 20ml cabernet sauvignon vinegar
- 300ml semi-skimmed milk
- 50ml whipping cream
- 200g fresh goat’s curd (Robin buys his from La Fromagerie, or you could use any soft goat’s cheese)
- 2 Pink Lady apples, sliced and coated in lemon juice to prevent browning
- 1 lemon
- 1 bunch wild watercress, seasoned with walnut oil and vinegar
- 50g Pecorino Sardo
- pumpkin seeds, toasted
Method:
Put the pumpkin on a thick tea towel to keep it steady, before using a large strong knife to cut it in half. Scoop out the seeds and hair. Take one half and slice into wedges, then peel, before slicing the flesh lengthways into 1cm strips. Season the slices before charring in batches on a griddle pan set over a medium-low heat (around 3 minutes on each side).
Once griddled, add a drizzle of oil and vinegar over the strips before setting to one side.
Take the remaining half of pumpkin and cut into wedges, before peeling. Slice your wedges into dice, roughly 2cm squared. You will need to square the wedges off to do this, so place all your trimmings to one side – you will need them for the purée.
Heat olive oil in a wide non-stick pan and fry the dice until cooked, before adding a drizzle of walnut oil and vinegar. Leave to cool.
Chop all of the pumpkin trimmings to roughly the same size (2-4cm). Re-use your wide bottomed frying pan. Heat it up with a drizzle of olive oil and add the trimmings. Cook down for five minutes, scraping the pan where the pumpkin sugars catch – this adds a lovely caramelised flavour to the purée. Now add a touch of vinegar to deglaze the pan, before adding enough semi-skimmed milk to cover the pumpkin, plus the whipping cream. Reduce the heat and cook until tender – approximately 10 minutes. Place in a food processor and blend to a smooth purée, adjusting the seasoning and vinegar to taste.
Place a swirl of goat’s cheese on each plate and add the purée in swirls around it. Scatter over a serving of pumpkin dice, a few apple slices and some grilled pumpkin. Add shavings of Pecorino, dressed watercress and a pinch of toasted pumpkin seeds to finish.
The Sweet: Apple & Cinnamon Doughnuts
These are a perfect sticky, sweet Halloween confection from Robin Tarver at Royal Exchange. Beware small children around deep-frying, but this is a recipe children and adults alike should love.
Ingredients: (makes 20)
- 1 pint of vegetable oil for frying
- 250g plain flour
- 60g white sugar, plus 3 tbsp for the apples and dusting
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp salt
- ½ pint of milk
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp melted butter
- ¼ tsp vanilla extract
- 2 Granny Smith apples
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
Method:
Heat the oil in a deep-fryer or large saucepan to 365OF/185OC. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl.
Whisk the milk, egg, butter and vanilla extract together in a separate large bowl until blended. Slowly stir in the flour mixture until entirely incorporated in a batter the consistency of a thick pancake mix.
Peel and dice the apples and cook to a purée with 2 tablespoons of sugar, then put in a piping bag.
Drop the batter by teaspoonfuls, into the preheated oil. Fry until deep golden brown on all sides, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove to drain on a platter lined with paper towels.
Make a small hole in each doughnut and pipe in some of the apple mix.
Mix together 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar with 1 tablespoon of cinnamon in a flat-bottomed dish. Roll the doughnuts in the sugar mixture.
